Editorial: Broad reach of SOPA threatens free speech in name of battling piracy

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty ImagesWikipedia was not available yesterday as the site has been shut down to protest an Internet censorship bill. Some of its editors says the protest could threaten the site's credibility

The internet’s sprawling marketplace of ideas and information was a little less vibrant yesterday. Hundreds of sites, including Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing, darkened their portals for 24 hours to protest anti-piracy legislation now under consideration in Congress.

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), the House version, and the Senate’s PIPA (Protect IP Act) aim to halt the theft of intellectual property by having websites that provide such pirated content shut down completely. Backed by a wide-ranging coalition of business groups, sports and entertainment content providers, the bills and their chilling consequences have been hotly debated for months.

Supporters argue that it’s time to get serious about the online theft of movies, music and other content. They’re right. But there are better ways of going about it.

SOPA would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be engaged in copyright infringement, says the nonpartisan Open Congress. Copyright owners would be able to start legal action against any site they believe has “only limited purpose or use other than infringement.” In those cases, the government could demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site.

That’s an awfully wide doorway.

And there’s no provision for properly adjudicating claims. “Because I said so” may be reason enough for a tired 2-year-old, but it’s not a legitimate basis for government censorship of a site that may not even be aware of infringement.

In order to prevent such lapses, internet companies would have to hire a staff just to sift through oceans of content. In addition to increasing the costs and hurdles for internet entrepreneurs, the legislation could lead to pre-emptive censorship, says Rebecca MacKinnon, a co-founder of Global Voices Online.

“In countries where heavy legal liability is imposed on companies, employees tasked with day-to-day censorship jobs have a strong incentive to play it safe and over-censor — even in the case of content whose legality might stand a good chance of holding up in a court of law,” she wrote in a New York Times piece.

While censorship is not the intent of the legislation, it very well may be a collateral effect. And though the goal of halting thievery is admirable, the bills need a great deal of refinement before they can fairly and effectively accomplish that aim.

We believe online piracy must be stopped. We believe, however, that it must be done in a way that does not threaten the freedom of speech that has proved so pivotal in reshaping the world.